Full Series Order 66 on TCW

Here's what I want to know: What else can the clones be "possessed" into doing?

 

So, based on what's been said in the spoiler threads after the German airing, Order 66 was

Spoiler

a secret Order which was implanted into the clones which the Jedi was unaware of and which was only known by the Sith and the Kaminoans. So, it appears it wasn't a contingency order.

 

So it then appears that my earlier-stated concerns may have come true... TCW does in fact appear to be screwing up Order 66. I wish they had left it alone.

 

I'm quite pleased as I never thought the earlier EU incarnation (especially how the order was described in Order 66) didn't make the least bit sense. The Jedi had become arrogant, not stupid.

 

Conceptually speaking, something has absolutely been lost by TCW's decision. When the order was merely an order, we had a much deeper situation in play. One that spoke to the dangers of blind loyalty and the morality of unquestioning obedience from soldiers. One that showed how Palpatine had manipulated everything from opinions to military parlance to ensure that his ascension and the Jedi's fall was nothing more than the will of the people, and always completely within the letter of the law. Now we have merely another in a long list of mind tricks, done not with the Force, but done with no more depth than the wave of a hand.

Canonically speaking, however, it doesn't appear that anything's really been lost or replaced, but merely added to. There's nothing to suggest that there doesn't continue to be an official contingency order on the books, but rather we now have a contingency for the contingency.

Spoiler

With the bio-chip in effect, Sidious had insurance that when the time comes, the most import order on the list would be followed without fail. This was the secret they most desperately needed to hide from the Jedi and the Republic at large, that no matter what happened, even if they never fulfilled the legal requirements of the order, the Jedi would die regardless because the trigger had already been pulled before the gun ever made it into the shooter's hand.

The show also leaves ample room to allow for previous instances of clones refusing to comply with Order 66, such as Dark Lord and Republic Commando, with the proviso that sometimes things just don't work how they're intended to.

 

Something like:


If Palpatine's saying "Execute Order 66" to a clone, face to face via holocomm, that clone must obey.

But if a clone commander tells other clones that "The Jedi have turned traitor and must be executed" - they have the power to be skeptical.

That would cover Dark Lord, at least.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of sometimes the implanted bio-chip that compels the execution of Order 66 just goes bad and doesn't work. Or in the case of the Null-class ARCs, possibly even the Alpha-class as well, the bio-chip just isn't there at all, being prototype and early/advanced iterations, respectively. That way, all sides of the equation are covered, Dark Lord, RepCom, and any other or future storylines.

 

Yes, Mia Mesharad, exactly my train of thoughs. My 9-year-old son was always worried about the whole Order 66 thing - we're currently playing a Star Wars RPG (D6) campaign set in the Clone Wars, and his beloved Padawan character's best bud is one of their unit's clones. Now with last night's

Spoiler

biochip

explanation, sonny was hugely relieved: Their RPG troupe narrowly survived one their last missions, and now his bestie has more

Spoiler

wood shrapnel in his head than Pinocchio

. Sonny was like: "Yay, we might survive the Order after all!"

 

Uhh... regardless of the less-than-stellar phrased Order 66 in the EU (which also was "erroneous" as Palpatine made himself Supreme Commander of the GAR in the very last few days of the Republic as per the ROTS novelization, not in 21 BBY. A position which had up to that point been held by the Jedi Council.) and which would have allowed for the execution of the Jedi for any reason whatsoever), it's clear that

Spoiler

Clone Protocoll 66, which implemented Order 66, was unknown to the Jedi and in extension Order 66 as such. The Jedi never saw that coming.

 

Already went over this in the Lit thread, but sure, why the hell not...

Quite true, Palpatine wasn't the Supreme Commander of the GAR until 19 BBY. However, the epigraphs in which Order 66 is detailed in its entirety in both True Colors and Order 66 are without dates. Just as quotes from Imperial-era clone retirees and research snippets from Imperial-era scientific studies were being posted as epigraphs earlier than they chronologically "appeared" for dramatic effect, there's no indication that these orders, with the addendum that the GAR's Supreme Commander had become the Supreme Chancellor, aren't from a later point than when they were "appearing" in the novels. The epigraphs, while canonical, are not directly tied to any specific time unless directly stated in the attribution.

With this in mind, the order aligns even more smoothly with Palpatine's manipulative ascension as he had to legally maneuver himself into the role of Supreme Commander before he could execute the order in the first place, just as we see him do through the collective Security Acts and amendments in Republic, Labyrinth of Evil, and Revenge of the Sith.

Pretty sure it's just the implanted bio-chip forcing the clones to comply with Order 66 that's a secret known only to the Sith and the Kaminoan cloners. No one ever said there isn't a known list of contingency orders that include Order 66, of which the Jedi are aware. The Sith just panic when it gets out that no matter what the Jedi do, even if they never fulfill the requirements of Order 66, they're going to be killed anyway, simply for being Jedi, because the chip's there to ensure the execution.

 

Ke narir haar'ke'gyce rol'eta resol!

So what is your verdict on how Order 66 was handled in the Fives arc?

Originally, I admit to having a few misgivings about how they would choose to handle what until now was once believed to be a simple contingency order that the clones almost overwhelmingly obey without question, due to the nature of their indoctrination of obedience to orders. However, I wanted to wait until I'd seen the full arc before making a judgment. Now that I and most of us here have seen this arc, I personally admit to being pleased with the explanation given by the show regarding "Protocol 66". Firstly, there is no real contradiction at all to what's shown in the films and in the EU, as Mia has previously stated. Order 66 can still quite easily exist as one of a number of contingency orders for the GAR. The purpose of the implanted bio-chips is to ensure that Order 66 is obeyed without question by clones that may have developed some level of attachment to their Jedi generals. Given how the clones were portrayed in TCW, as very human characters with great loyalty to their generals, possessing creativity and capable of questioning orders (as evidenced by the Umbara arc), I'm unsurprised that they chose to address the whole Order 66 situation as a compulsory element programmed into the clones via the so-called "inhibitor chip". Maybe not the most elegant solution, but an intriguing one nonetheless.

The power of this element is that it shows Palpatine had contingencies in place to ensure this most crucial of orders is followed to the letter by the clones of the GAR. While the Kaminoans promised their Sith client that the clones were bred to obey orders without question, and were nonplussed by "deviant" behavior in clones like Fives, it would seem the Sith wanted to ensure that Order 66 would proceed without a hitch by having the clones implanted with the bio-chip in an early fetal stage. It's something that would make sense from Palpatine's point of view, even if it might on the surface go against how we envisioned Order 66 went down in the mind of the clones, namely Commander Bacara: "I hesitated for a moment when I received Order 66 because the last thing I expected was a Jedi coup. Did I feel betrayed? You bet I did. I thought of all my men who died under Ki-Adi-Mundi's command, and if I'd known then that he and his buddies were gearing up to do the Separatists' work for them and overthrow the government, I'd have shot him as a traitor a lot earlier. He betrayed the trust of every one of us." If the Order triggered the urge to kill Jedi at command, I wonder whether clones like Bacara would think these thoughts at all? Perhaps, like Bacara, some did genuinely believe their Jedi generals had betrayed their trust, whilst others were merely compelled to carry out the command without thought. This of course leaves us to wonder what happens afterward. Would many clones react like Tup did, with dismay over discovering that they had killed their generals? Or would they go on loyally serving the Republic, which they were trained to put above all else? An interesting thought that I'd love to see explained in the future, in light of these episodes.

Ultimately, though, even though it may be genetically programmed into the clones, the free will of some clones is sufficient to override the "protocol", and thus allows for clones to disobey and defect, as shown in the EU by authors such as Luceno and Traviss. It's evidence of the "nature versus nurture" debate, and hints that in some cases at least, the sum of one clone trooper's experiences may be enough to suppress a seemingly free will-overriding command in Order 66, showing that Palpatine's schemes weren't completely foolproof. While the Jedi did seem to buy Palpatine's bogus findings of a "virus" infecting Tup and Fives, as QuangoFett mentioned before, it's possible that providing the clones with an "inoculation" would ensure that even clones that might have their chips removed would still go on to obey Order 66.

In conclusion, I think TCW handled the whole Order 66 business well enough. It might not have been an ideal solution, introducing the bio-chips, but it really drove home how the Sith had spent so long preparing for a number of contingencies, and took the steps necessary to ensure the Grand Army would be the doom of the Jedi, while highlighting the real tragedy of the order; that even many of the clones most loyal to their Jedi commanders would so quickly turn on them at the word of a single command, because that was their true purpose in the war. Not to defeat the Separatists, but to destroy the Jedi Order. It would have been gut-wrenching to learn that the heroic clones we've come to know and appreciate throughout TCW's run would so readily turn on their generals because they were simply loyal to the Republic and the Chancellor above all else. TCW's solution enabled Order 66 to make sense in the context of the show's portrayal of the clones, without taking away from its ultimate tragedy. IMO.

 

Order 66 wasn't completely trashed but they pushed it to the breaking point imo.

 

My take on the Order 66 arc was that it was really good, despite the fact that they used an Order 66 premise that I don't really agree with. I'm still moved by the significance of Palpatine saying "the time has come" in ROTS, and that the clones would follow a contingency order from the Chancellor above all else when it really came down to it. The chip causing a "manchurian candidate" type situation still feels like a bit of a cop out to me, even though it was explained logically within this arc. The irony of Tup saying "good soldiers follow orders" was that in ROTS, they seemed to do exactly that but apparently without the mind control aspect needing to be there.

But as I said, I did think the arc was really good despite those issues. DBB was in top form again as the voice of all the clones, and some of the performances (especially Fives) were pretty impressive. Fives would have done what he did for any clone, not just Tup, and he also considered the Jedi his brothers too.

 

The mechanics of the chip are odd. I mean... When Tup's degrades, he becomes aware of Order 66, while those clones with theirs intact are oblivious to the order. So, I though perhaps it suppressed knowledge of the order until it could be switched "off," but that doesn't make sense, since when Fives has his removed he is fine and does not become aware of any orders. So the chip itself is carrying the order but only delivers the compulsion to kill the Jedi when the auditory order "execute Order 66" is given, at which point the clones also become aware of Palpatine as their "lord." And Tup's misfired prematurely without having to receive the order, but then on again and off again he seems to have no knowledge of killing a Jedi.

Tup seems entranced, mumbling to himself like he's not all there in the head, repeating how good soldiers follow orders. But the clones in ROTS were perfectly coherent. They received the order, they merely told Palpatine it would be done, and turned on the Jedi. Cody did not start mumbling about good soldiers following orders. He merely turned to his subordinates, gave the order to fire on Obi-Wan, and they did so. Which raises the additional issue of Cody being the one specifically to receive the order on Utapau, as Palpatine says "Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order 66." That didn't imply to me that every single clone of the millions in the galaxy received the order personally. It seemed to be going only to the commanders, with someone like Cody then merely instructing his subordinates to fire on Obi-Wan and Gree giving nothing more than a nod to one of his fellow clones.

To me, this, in addition to the phrasing of "the time has come," indicated that this was an order the clones new was going to come down the chain of command, thus Gree needed to do little more than give a nod, and Cody need only give the order to shoot Obi-Wan without forwarding the "Order 66 command" or justifying the order in any way to those that did not personally receive a message from Palpatine.

And what? Palpatine just told Anakin to move quickly to attack the Jedi Temple and the 501st went with him. I don't recall Palpatine saying "oh, by the way, you have to tell them to execute Order 66, because that subconsciously compels the clones to kill all Jedi, and for whatever reason you will be spared from this overriding compulsion of the clones' free will."

You would think that given the events of the Order 66 arc, this would defeat Palpatine's attempts to sell Anakin on the lie that the Jedi had committed treason, given that it would confirm everything that Fives had said about Palpatine having a plot in motion to eliminate the Jedi, before the alleged coup ever took place.

I can just picture how Operation Knightfall went down.

Anakin (standing before the assembled 501st): "Excuse me, guys? Can I have your attention please? Can I have it quiet in the back! Appo, eyes forward! We've got new orders, Order 66 is being enacted. I repeat, Order 66 is a go. However-

Clone: Oh... Good soldiers follow orders.
Clone: ...Follow orders.
Clone: Good soldiers...

*The voices of hundreds of clones mumbling the same jibberish becomes a white noise*
*All clones point their blasters at Anakin*

Anakin: HOWEVER! I am no longer a Jedi. My name is Darth Vader now, and I am now a Sith, so in this instance Order 66 does not apply.

*Clones lower blasters*

Clones: ...Good soldiers follow orders....

 

Just closing out my final thoughts on "Order 66 on TCW" with a post I made the other day in the "Jedi knowledge about Order 66" thread...